Behind the scenes of the Braves’ successful rise to the top of the Valley are the team’s managers. Comprised of undergraduate students, they are a part of the program on more than just an employee level.
When managers first enroll at Bradley, they are just basketball fans who are eager to get involved on campus.
Junior middle school education major Payton Mulligan received an email from his residential advisor who was recruiting new managers. Senior Jacob Wetzel received an email simply because he is a sports communication major. They both decided to look further into it.
“I kinda just went with it,” Mulligan said. “I’ve always kinda wanted to coach so its a good way into coaching being around a program for four years.”
“I wanted to work with basketball and thought this is the great shot to network and get to know coaches and travel across the Valley,” Wetzel said.
Although the managers are not full time employees of the athletic department, they feel appreciated by the players and coaches who have allowed them to become more involved as each year progresses.
“I think the guys and the coaches trust us and know that we put in a lot of work too. We have really created a bond,” Wetzel said. “The way we get treated and how the coaches communicate with us its like we have become more friends as opposed to employees.”
The friendship has grown through the commitment of the seven managers. At each practice, they are responsible for towels, pinnies, water, running the clock and coding film. They serve the coaching staff and players with any request to help things go smoothly. They said coaches know what they could do and they know what they’re capable of doing.
As basketball fans that experience high level coaching nearly everyday, the managers enjoy playing the game themselves.
In 2014 at Michigan State, three managers began to organize a postseason tournament with teams from 27 Division I conferences with just team managers. The first Manager Games Postseason Tournament took place in March 2016.
This year Bradley was eligible for the tourney by playing six games and going 5-1 during the season. They earned an eight seed. The first matchup was with MVC foe Drake, but the Bulldogs decided not to play. When a game is not played it is decided by a fan vote on Twitter.
Bradley was given a 52.2 percent chance to beat Drake and needed 47.8 percent of the Twitter vote to move on to the next round.
After winning the poll, they moved onto face UCF. Once again, they faced off in another Twitter poll. Bradley needed 56.5 percent of the vote to move on. They only received 45 percent of the 2,906 votes, ending their season. It was the furthest they have gotten in the postseason tournament.
Despite the loss, the managers said they tried playing 5-on-5 during the season as much as possible.
“We set out to play as many [games] as we could this year,” Mulligan said. “You can play three on three and sometimes your director of basketball operations can play and your video guy can play when you’re on the road.”
They believe they were the third best team in the Valley, behind a tough Missouri State team and Illinois State that boasts assistant coach and former NBA player Chris Duhon.
Bradley’s Coordinator of Player Development and Video Operations Troy Peirce played at Charleston Southern University and Emporia State.
The games are usually just for fun, but the manager said they do want to win when it’s crunch time. Wetzel said that he is constantly surprised by the fact that each team resembles the Division I program they support.
“We resemble our team by trying to run some of our plays that we know,” Wetzel said. “Its pretty laid back, like if you lose the game, it’s not a huge deal and no one is playing hard enough to get hurt.”
The players and coaches are usually unable to attend the manager’s games but they are well aware of the team’s presence.
“We get a lot of support and they give us a hard time if we lose,” Wetzel said. “Towards the end, when we were trying to make the tournament and qualify, [everyone involved with Bradley basketball] really got into it. Everyone was tweeting out trying to help us.”
Head coach Brian Wardle said that the managers are a part of the team and loves that they play hard.
“They’re a competitive group,” Wardle said. “We do like managers who have played before or who have been a part of a team. When you’re around our program every day and involved in the details like our managers are, I think it gets your competitive juices flowing a little bit.”
Mulligan recalled one conversation with junior guard Nate Kennell before the final game at Loyola who said that the mangers had no shot to score enough points to compete. They won by two. Both the managers and players enjoy the joking banter.
“The players could never understand how we scored 80 points in our first three games.” Wetzel said. “I think they enjoy seeing us win because it makes the program just that much better because everyone’s having a good time with it.”
Wetzel said that being able to play with some of his close friends has allowed him to do his job better.
“If on Tuesday night we get a win, the next day at shoot around I’m out there making some good passes and flying around,” Wetzel said.
You can follow the managers and vote for them next year @BradleyManagers on Twitter.
